


Running

by Twisted_Magic



Series: Series of Solangelo Standalones [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Fight Scene, M/M, Monsters, One Shot, solangelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Magic/pseuds/Twisted_Magic
Summary: Nico di Angelo has always lived by one simple rule: when things get too much to handle, it’s time to leave. And right now feels like one of those times.~Nico runs off to Europe and unsuccessfully tries to forget Will.





	Running

Nico di Angelo has always lived by one simple rule: when things get too much to handle, it’s time to leave.

And right now feels like one of those times.

He stands on the border of Camp Half-Blood, on a hilltop that rings the valley below, taking one last look at what has become his home. The warm August breeze whispers across the tears that silently make their way down Nico’s cheeks. The energy of the protective border shifts behind him with a faint thrumming in his ears. With just a few steps, he could be on the other side, Mist shrouding the camp from view and aiding him in forgetting about this place for the last time. 

Out of sight, out of mind.

Things had been going great for awhile. Will is the most supportive and patient person Nico has ever met. The past year or so after the war has been filled with lots of pain, yes, but Will has always been there when it got too difficult to breathe, to live with the images flashing behind his eyelids at night. He had even been there on one awful night when Nico had woken up with the taste of pomegranate in his mouth and he had frantically tried to cut out his tongue in a desperate attempt to make the taste go away. Will was a lot more cautious with him after that, realizing he was out of his depth, but he never stopped trying. And Nico doesn’t deserve that.

A few hours ago the two of them had been cuddling in Nico’s bed, Will running his fingers through Nico’s hair after an anxiety attack, when it had struck him. Nico realized how unfair he’s been. All he’s been doing is take and take and take. It’s always Will comforting him, and sure, Nico has a lot more weighing on his mental well being due to having been to Tartarus and back, but Will never receives. Nico never  _ gives. _

And it’s now killing him with guilt.

So he snuck out of bed after he was sure Will was asleep, gathered some belongings into a backpack, and slipped into the night.

He knows he’s being childish, he should just own up to his misdoings and take better care of Will in return. But he can’t stand the thought of how he’s acted. And he knows now that he’s too much for Will to handle. No matter what Nico does for Will, it will never be enough to make up for what Will does for him.

The only thing to do now is leave and hope Will forgets about him.

Nico takes three steps back through the border, wraps himself in shadows, and melts onto another continent.

 

*** 

 

The first few weeks are spent in Liechtenstein, living out of bins of thrown away food from behind restaurants and sleeping on rooftops. The country quickly proves to be too small to remain unnoticed in though, and he hops to Romania. There, the ghost of an old scholar helps translate to Nico what to say to the Romanian Police when caught on the street at night, and he even befriends a homeless boy named  Ioan. But a month later Ioan gets shot by a gang member, and Nico quietly shadow travels to Finland. There he has a run in with a Näkki, a water spirit from Finnish mythology. He kills it, but not before it manages to drown a little girl.

He barely spends a week in Spain before the pattern repeats itself. 

Shadow travel, survive, settle in, imminent disaster. Repeat.

And it keeps repeating.

Tragedy and misfortune seems to follow Nico wherever he goes. Nico begins to think he’s cursed.

So he hops around Europe, drawn to the familiarity of his homeland, but never returning to Venice. That’s where his curse started, after all. That’s where his birth resulted in his mother getting killed. She was killed because of him. Bianca had a hand in Maria’s death too, of course, but she’s repaid for it with her own death. Nico knows now that he deserves this kind of life, never having a home or someone to care for him. All is how it should be.

 

*** 

 

By the end of April, Nico is exhausted. The past seven months have taken their toll on him in the form of scars, haunting memories, and an achingly malnourished body. Every step is a heave of sore feet and muscles. Nico looks down at the loaf of bread he has just convinced himself to steal from a house, and swallows down a wave of nausea. Whether the nausea is from the malnourishment or the thought of eating something stolen, Nico doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care enough to figure it out. He puts it in his backpack for later and shadow travels to his campsite.

Nico has grown fairly comfortable in France over the past few weeks. He had set up camp in a secluded tree-lined valley not far from the town of Gévaudan, from which he  regretfully steals food. Nico plops down on a tree stump next to his unlit campfire and drops his backpack to the ground with a tired sigh. Despite the fact that he has all the time in the world, he can never get enough sleep. His dreams are fraught with the faces of the monsters he’s seen and with the demons he left back at Camp Half-Blood. Nico frequently dreams of Will. They’re good, peaceful dreams, but Nico always wakes up in tears. And with every blond head of hair he spots in France there’s an accompanying flare of hope that it’s Will. He can’t stop thinking about him.

Nico drags his hands through his hair and glares at the valley stretched out below him. He tries to forget Will, he really does. But the longer he stays out here on his own, fighting foreign monsters and always searching for his next meal, the more he finds that maybe he doesn’t actually want to forget. 

And that scares the shit out of Nico.

Nico shakes his head vigorously and begins counting the scars and nicks on his fingers with forced concentration, a habit he’s developed in an attempt to distract himself in moments such as this.

But a moment later, a more suitable distraction comes in the abrupt arrival of one of the Beasts of Gévaudan. During his many visits to the town, Nico has grown used to seeing the life-sized statues of them, so he immediately recognizes the wolf-like creature. It barrels down from the top of the mountain with thunderous bounds, snapping branches under its paws, snarling all the way. Nico barely has time to draw his Stygian iron sword with sluggish exhaustion before it leaps at him with a roar.

The Beast slams into Nico and knocks him to the ground with enough weight and power to drive the air from his lungs. The stench of old blood and the drip of saliva makes Nico gag as he tries to regain his breath. The monster instantly goes for Nico’s throat in an attempt to tear it out, but he manages to throw it off. His black sword glints in the last light of day as he swings it through the air, connecting with a canine shoulder with a satisfying thud. The creature yelps. But Nico only has a second of satisfaction before the Beast rams into Nico and tips him over the edge.

Nico crashes down the mountainside, turning over and over and over, individual pains blurring into each other. By the time he reaches the bottom of the valley, his skin feels raw and sharp pain throbs through his bones. The Beast is close behind, and moment later Nico feels its teeth sink into his shoulder. Nico is intensely grateful that it wasn’t his throat, but it hurts nonetheless. A scream tears from his mouth. His shoulder is being torn apart and blood is dripping into his eyes from a gash on his forehead, making the world a whirl of red blood and red hot pain. 

This then manifests itself in a strange way.

Shadows and pain spill out of Nico, latching onto the monster. It cries out as it’s bombarded by the dark things inside Nico. He somehow finds enough strength to come up to kneel beside the writhing creature, and he shadow travels his hand through its chest and yanks out its heart. Blood is everywhere; it’s in his eyes, it’s on his hands, it’s pounding in his ears. Nico feels alive as he watches the Beast die.

Once the corpse is cold and Nico is shivering with his own blood loss, he makes a decision. He really, really doesn’t want to do this, but there’s no way he’s going to recover from this on his own when he ran out of ambrosia in the first month, and he’s not ready to die just yet. All of this would have been for nothing. And he needs to continue to atone for all the deaths he’s caused.

He gathers his things, and with his last shred of strength, Nico shadow travels to Camp Half-Blood.

 

*** 

 

Returning is a nightmare for everyone. Will is in hysterics, frantically pouring healing light into a body drenched in blood and full of broken bones. Nico can’t remember a time he’s ever felt this guilty. Once the worst has been healed and the less worse has been swathed in bandages, and after he’s explained the monster blood he’s wearing like a glove, Nico falls into a deep sleep. His exhausted body grants him a dreamless rest, so when he wakes a day or two later, he has enough strength to face Will and explain himself.

It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, but Nico manages to spill his guts to this beautiful golden boy. The disgusting and greedy truth is painful to come out. He even cries, and he worries Will won’t ever forgive him for being such a parasite on his affections. Nico cries over the pathetic fact that he left the continent to avoid the consequences, and he sobs over the even more pathetic fact that after everything, he’s back here to leech off of Will’s kindness yet again.

Nico knows he’s being too much. He came back to camp dripping with two different types of blood for gods’ sakes. All he does is create drama and drag others down.

But as is to be expected, Will is kind, and he cries too, and it ends in hugs. Will reminds him that this is the life of a demigod, and if it was too much for him, he could just leave camp and live in the mortal world. He hasn’t though, and he’s here to stay. Will assures that he wants nothing more than to be there for the boy he loves – he actually said it, the word love – and Nico promises to try harder to look outside of himself and recognize when Will needs some help too. It’s an emotional, messy business, and seven months of starving and monster slaying can’t be taken back, but Nico is determined to end the curse that plagues him and those around him. No more pain. No more deaths.

No more running.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> ~
> 
> A Näkki is a mythological humanoid water spirit that pulls children underwater when they get too close to the water's edge.
> 
> The Beasts of Gévaudan were real, they were creatures that ripped the throats out of around 113 people between 1764 and 1767 in the town of Gévaudan. They are now believed to be wolves, but they were described as having 'immense tails' and so were originally thought to be monsters.


End file.
